Why Obamacare Lives

posted by Michael Yaffee -
Sep 19, 2017

Well the Republicans are at it again. In a last desperate attempt to keep their promise to the voters the GOP is making one last effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Can they get it done? At this point I’m pretty skeptical. The reason the new Graham-Cassidy bill has any chance of passing is because it really is not a full repeal and actually keeps a lot of the Obamacare structure in place, which they believe will help them round up some Democrats to vote for the bill. This won’t stop the GOP from trying because they know that they’ll hear it from the voters if this thing doesn’t pass.

Since Trump was inaugurated there have been many attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare that have gone down in flames. Because of this there has been a lot of pointing fingers. The Tea Party is blaming the Republican leadership, the leadership is blaming the Tea Party, many are blaming President Trump, and Trump blamed the Democrats. So who is really to blame?

The Republican leadership, including Trump frankly, definitely deserves some of the blame. The bills they have pushed forward were far from the true repeal that they promised the voters for years. They still can’t seem to actually stand up for true free market reforms that would get the government out of the way and make healthcare affordable again. The new Graham-Cassidy Bill does give more power to the states through block grants, but it basically keeps a lot of the regulations and subsidies in place. The Republican leadership has basically bought into the premise that it’s the government’s job to be heavily involved in health insurance.

That being said the Republicans in Congress really don’t deserve most of the blame. The fact is when straight repeal came up for a vote in the Senate back in July only seven Republicans voted against it, and only three voted against the “skinny repeal”. For all of the Obamacare replacement bills the vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for them. So why wasn’t it enough? Because every single Democrat voted against them.

While you might think this is going to be a diatribe blaming Democrats for all our problems, I’m actually pointing the finger somewhere else. The only reason the Democrats own half the Senate is because HALF THE COUNTRY VOTED THEM IN. When you look at poll after poll around half the American people are satisfied with Obamacare. Too many Americans have given in to the premise that it is the government’s job to be heavily involved in our healthcare. This means we have done a poor job convincing the American people that free markets work, that limited government works, and that in dealing with healthcare government is not the solution, it’s the problem. We can throw blame at the Republicans all we want, but the real reason we can’t get Obamacare done is we live in a much divided country that has given up on the free market in too many areas. Conservatives have a lot more work to do beyond passing a bill.